Unconventional Art Media

As novelist Jerzy Kosiński aptly put it - “The principle of art is to pause, not bypass.” In other words, art exists everywhere around us. All we have to do is pause, take a breath of fresh air, and discover it.

Below are examples of 6 artists who have creatively made use of ordinary objects as art mediums to bring art to a whole new level.

1. Ruslan Khasanov

Let’s start of by looking at the medium Russian graphic designer Ruslan Khasanov innovatively thought of to create visual art.

Are you ready to find out what the interesting composition is made up of? Well, it is oil and soy sauce mixed with glitter (because glitter makes everything better) observed close up. Who would have thought that normal cooking ingredients could be used as art mediums? Ruslan is a pioneer in this field and continues to experiment with different densities of oil and soy sauce to create stunning videos. Click here for the video.

2. Natalie Irish

Natalie Irish is a woman that does not mess around. Except with lipstick. In an interesting way. What am I trying to say? Let’s just say that Natalie is one with the canvas – she showers her canvas with kisses of love, literally.

Natalie smothers her lips in her favourite lipstick and makes detailed paintings of iconic stars using her smooches. She was inspired to use lipstick as an art medium when she blotted her lips on a napkin, and realized she could make certain shapes by varying the pressure of the kisses.

Below is her masterpiece of Marilyn Monroe. It is safe to say that she did justice to Marilyn Monroe using every woman’s favourite accessory, lipstick.

If you want to check out the entire video of this amazing method, click here.

3. Jessica Watts

An artist featured on our site, Jessica Watts uses her favourite childhood memory - vintage wallpaper - as the base of her artworks. She layers wallpaper onto her canvas directly; it then forms the backdrop of the painting, and at times appears in surprising places as well. Her aim was to revive old wallpapers and give them a new voice which resulted in the creation of a beautiful series of art aptly titled “Wallflowers.”

The Pursuit of Happiness by Jessica Watts. Do check out her artist profile to chat about your floral ambitions.

4. Giulia Bernardelli

The next medium is something that we have all consumed before. It’s dark, delicious, and a life saviour when it comes to meeting deadlines. That's right - coffee. Instagram user Giulia Bernardelli creates simple yet beautiful pieces using spilt coffee.

Check out her other amazing pieces here. Her art is testament to the fact that art can be created from the simplest of things, and you don’t have to look high and low to find inspiration to create art.

5. Pei-San Ng

This next artist, Pei-San Ng, has works that can light up your world, in the most literal sense. She uses a very interesting medium – matches. This is her most recent work which uses the iconic red tipped match as the medium. How did she get the inspiration to use red matches? Well, in Chinese culture red is a very lucky colour, and coupled with matches evoking danger, she wanted to mix these messages together in order to tempt the viewer to destroy her artwork. To see more of her pieces, visit her website.

As an artist on The Commissioned, Alicia Wee is constantly exploring the world of image-making. Experimenting with different kinds of techniques, crafts and canvases, she found a comfy spot with bubble wrap painting. She aims to carry forward this unique medium of her new found art and spread it to people all over the world. "Bowls" as seen below is a piece of acrylic on bubble wrap, which is a very unique and playful medium.